Conder v. State

953 N.E.2d 1197, 2011 Ind. App. LEXIS 1715, 2011 WL 4000808
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedSeptember 9, 2011
Docket49A02-1012-PC-1404
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 953 N.E.2d 1197 (Conder v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Conder v. State, 953 N.E.2d 1197, 2011 Ind. App. LEXIS 1715, 2011 WL 4000808 (Ind. Ct. App. 2011).

Opinion

OPINION

VAIDIK, Judge.

Case Summary

Matthew Conder was found guilty in a bench trial of murder for kicking a man to death in a bar parking lot. He now appeals the denial of his petition for post-conviction relief. Specifically, he contends that after the trial court found him guilty of murder, his trial counsel was ineffective for filing a motion to reconsider in which he asked the court to reduce his murder conviction to voluntary manslaughter as a Class A felony, which the court granted. He says his counsel should not have conceded that shoes are a deadly weapon and that he was prejudiced because he was foreclosed from appealing the shoe and the *1199 mens rea issues. We find neither deficient performance nor prejudice and therefore affirm the post-conviction court.

Facts and Procedural History

The underlying facts of this case, taken from this Court’s opinion on direct appeal, are as follows:

In the early morning hours of May 31, 2003, Indianapolis Police Department (IPD) officers responded to an emergency call from the Sawmill Saloon in Indianapolis, Indiana. Upon arrival, the responding officers discovered a white male, later identified as Preston Truett (Truett), lying dead in the parking lot. A security videotape of the activities inside the Sawmill Saloon that evening shows Truett and Conder sitting beside each other conversing and then exiting the bar together at approximately 3:12 a.m.
Police contacted Conder later that same day, and he gave the police a taped statement that night. In his statement, Conder told the police that he arrived at the Sawmill Saloon at around one in the morning. He had several drinks and, after exiting the bar with the rest of the remaining customers at closing time, Conder stood in the parking lot conversing with Truett. At some point, the two men began to argue, and Truett allegedly called Conder a “punk ass bitch” and pushed him. Conder then hit Truett, knocking him to the ground, and kicked him several times in the face. The autopsy of Truett’s body later revealed that he suffered six blunt impact points, all but one of which were consistent with being struck with a fist or kicked, and that the cause of death was blunt force injuries of the head and neck. Before leaving the parking lot, Conder took Truett’s wallet because “[he] wanted [Truett] to be as pissed off as [Conder] was when [Truett] woke up.”
Police obtained consent to search Con-der’s house, where they found a number of items, including photographs, from inside Truett’s wallet. The wallet itself was later retrieved from a sewer into which Conder had thrown it. The police also found the sneakers Conder had been wearing at the time of the incident, which he had cleaned with bleach in order to remove the blood on them.
On June 2, 2003, the State filed an information charging Conder with Count I, murder [while attempting to commit robbery], a felony, Ind.Code § 35-42-1-1; and Count II, robbery as a Class A felony, Ind.Code § 35-42-5-1. On November 5, 2004, the information was amended to include an additional count, Count V, murder, a felony, Ind.Code § 35-42-1-1.
On November 8, 2004, a bench trial was conducted, after which Conder was found guilty of theft, a Class D felony, as a lesser-included offense of Count II, robbery; and of Count V, murder. On November 16, 2004, Conder filed his Motion to Reconsider Guilty Finding on Amended Count [V] and To Enter Guilty Finding for Voluntary Manslaughter, a Class A Felony, as a Lesser Included Offense of Count I. In this motion, Conder requested that the trial court enter a finding of guilty to voluntary manslaughter rather than murder, arguing that, according to the facts of his case, his shoe constituted a “deadly weapon” for purposes of the voluntary manslaughter statute. See I.C. §§ 35-42-1-3, 35-41-l-8. [1] The State opposed *1200 Conder’s Motion to Reconsider. On November 24, 2004, the trial court conducted a hearing on the motion. Following this hearing, the trial court granted Conder’s Motion, entering his conviction as voluntary manslaughter rather than murder. On December 3, 2004, following his sentencing hearing, the trial court sentenced Conder to forty years for the voluntary manslaughter conviction and three years for the theft conviction, ordering that the two sentences be served consecutively.

Conder v. State, No. 49A02-0412-CR-1070, slip op. at 2-4, 833 N.E.2d 1104 (Ind.Ct.App. Aug. 17, 2005) (citations and footnote omitted).

On direct appeal, Conder raised two issues: whether the evidence was sufficient to support his conviction for voluntary manslaughter and whether the trial court abused its discretion in sentencing him. As for the first issue, we found that because Conder filed the motion to reconsider, in which he asked the trial court to find him guilty of voluntary manslaughter instead of murder, he “has waived any possible objection to the voluntary manslaughter conviction.” Id. at 5. As for Conder’s voluntary manslaughter sentence, we found it to be inappropriate and therefore reduced it from forty years to thirty years, making his aggregate sentence thirty-three years. Id. at 9-10.

In October 2006, Conder filed a pro se petition for post-conviction relief in which he alleged ineffective assistance of counsel. Specifically, Conder claimed that his trial counsel, Arnold Baratz, was ineffective for, among other things, filing the motion to reconsider in which he asked the trial court to reduce his murder conviction to voluntary manslaughter as a Class A felony by arguing that the shoe was a deadly weapon. See Appellant’s App. p. 35 (“Con-der maintains that counsel’s filing the motion to reconsider was appropriate. However, counsel should not have argued that Conder’s shoe was a deadly weapon.”). An attorney later entered an appearance on behalf of Conder. A two-day hearing was held at which both Conder and Attorney Baratz testified. Attorney Baratz testified that after the trial court found Con-der guilty of murder, he consulted Conder about filing the motion to reconsider. Nov. 18, 2009, P-C Tr. p. 14-16. The trial court entered extensive findings of fact and conclusions thereon denying Conder relief. The relevant findings and conclusions provide:

12. Mr. Baratz filed a Motion to Reconsider the guilty finding as to amended count V (murder) on November 16, 2004, in which he mentioned that the court’s finding of guilt followed a discussion of the evidence between the court and the parties and that the issue raised by the court was whether use of the defendant’s shoe could qualify as a deadly weapon.
13. On November 24, 2010, the court held a hearing on the Motion to Reconsider.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
953 N.E.2d 1197, 2011 Ind. App. LEXIS 1715, 2011 WL 4000808, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/conder-v-state-indctapp-2011.